Shaq clears the stands AGAIN!

Odenized.com original video on YouTube | Download Link

GET OUT!!! Every man for himself!

Shaq runs like he's young again

Odenized.com original video on YouTube

Could this be a turning point for Shaquille O'Neal and the Suns?

Buyout business

Detroit News’ Chris McCosky thinks David Stern should limit player buyouts to prevent major fraud and imbalances of power in the NBA.

Of course buyouts are great in a very limited context – mostly for injury situations like former Bull Jay Williams. However, recently healthy players are using the buyout as an only-way-out device to break their contract with their employer.

What I could see Stern doing is putting a stipulation on players who are bought out for non-health reasons -- make that player sit out the remainder of the season he was bought out in. Put those players in the free-agent pool for the following season.

Another idea is imposing a maximum payable percentage of player’s salary in buyout situations in order to dissuade healthy players from leaving.

Say it were 60 percent […] They would have to truly hate their current situation to leave 40 percent of their money on the table.

Creating new rules always and forever will create a bad taste in another’s mouth. In the average NBA fan’s, though? I’d wager there’s nothing sour about this idea.

Seeing players like Damon Stoudamire, Sam Cassell, Stephon Marbury moping around until their team lets them go is inexcusable for a professional organization.

Shaquille O’Neal famously forced a buyout with the Lakers organization because of an ego clash with ultrastar Kobe Bryant. Chris Webber simply stopped playing basketball for the Sixers until they found a team that won more games.

C’mon, this is supposed to be a League of acting role models.

On the other hand, we’re talking about a democratic organization where players and management should be able to make agreements.

A change, such as McCosky outlines, is completely biased toward the management. The last thing the NBA wants is a bunch of players who feel like they’re in shackles and mucking through situations they can’t stand.

Nonetheless, it should be a topic brought up in future Players’ Association/League Executive meetings. If a cordial agreement can come out of this, I think everyone will be happier in the long run….including the fans.

While few teams are still buying out contracts, now is the time to act.

While it would be nice for Sam I Am to play in Boston and compete for another championship, a forced buyout or trade should not precede his playing in Beantown.

You sign a deal. You honor it.

I'm out of agua

Yes, I really will talk about basketball...after I complain a bit.

Being starved of water is a tough thing.

It’s so freezing cold here in the middle of nowhere Illinois that the pipes have frozen, and I’m sitting here still with a dry mouth from last night.

I’ve called maintenance already, but it’s a Sunday morning, so I’m not getting my hope up too soon.

I got the sink on so as to know when the very first drops of ice-cold water are running through the apartment’s pipe veins again. I’ve never been without running water, and I’m already experiencing my saliva drying up.

So here I am, with an aching pain in my heart, and calls going out to maintenance every 15 minutes until they wake up their still-half drunken asses. So what more can I do than read the news (like I wasn’t going to be doing that anyway).

So Peter Vecsey of the New York Post is getting gall over the Nets for their horrible play of late. Sure they’ve lost three times in a row to the bain of all basketball in the NY Knicks.

Please try your best to ignore the rumors of JO for VC. Please, this would help neither team, and most certainly not the Nets. Ask Vecsey notes in his punned column Tear Down the Nets:

“I assume owner Bruce Ratner realizes it would be an expensive and enduring miscalculation to think a big man like, say, Jermaine O'Neal, can be a difference maker now or next season or the one after that. He's readily available for a reason, $44 million of 'em, actually, as well as being injury prone and a non-winner.”

So far this season we’ve heard complaining from beat writers covering the Bulls, Clippers, Jazz, Heat, Knicks, Minnesota, Atlanta, the Bucks, Seattle, Memphis. Pretty much every team that’s not rolling with a .500 record at this point.

Not to mention the last chance to do anything about it is coming up within only a month from now.

Vecsey says get rid of Kidd while they can still get something for him. I say good call, it’s blasphemous for anyone to say it, but thank goodness someone was able to.

Obviously, we're calling for a Nets rebuilding phase. Theoretically, it's not going to be years and years, but should be a miniature extravaganza before the 2010 move to Brooklyn. But ready Knicks, big brother might be coming to town.

Potential, tapped

JO: worth less than the ice on his knees.

I like Empty the Bench’s idea. Its article, “Untapped Potential: Ten NBA Players We Want to See on the Court More Often” is something I’ve always thought a lot about as a fantasy hoops GM (and one who doesn’t draft well, at that).

Certainly, more than a good handful of playas get unfair bench splinters in the this League. If given PT, they would/could be studs, but for a host of reasons, don’t get the opportunity.

ETB thinks these 10 deserve to be on the court more:

Amir Johnson
Sean Williams
Gerald Green
Renaldo Balkman
Thabo Sefolosha
Rodney Carney
Julian Wright
Craig Smith
J.R. Smith
Lou Williams

You don’t have to be named Alert to do it. This is easy. A challenge you to look at any roster, and NOT find rooks, sophs, or possibly even a third year guy who hasn’t really been shown love.

I’m not disagreeing with this list. I’m just saying it’s too easy to make it. I mean, there’s a host of players I’d like to see get their time, but that’s the just the facts of life.

The NBA life that is.

Thank goodness for the D League so some of them can work on their game rather than “develop” from the sidelines.

Surely, there’s a lot factoring into how much PT players receive. A lot has to do with salaries. Young guys just don’t make as much as the vets who put in their time. It’s the great travesty of modern agriculturalized, civilized society, of course.

These young guns who unfairly get no burn will get theirs quite soon. There’s no need to worry about Amir Johnson getting some because he’s still 21. It’s only a matter of games before the Pistons’ depth chart finds a healthy and prominent place for him.

Yet, here’s a more interesting list. I’d rather list the top 10 players whose production has fallen to the point of uselessness. We’re going to reverse this osmosis and look at some of the untapped potential players who have deviated far from the spigot.

It’s now grandma bone dry!

Ben Wallace
Shaquille O’Neal
Eddy Curry
Stephon Marbury
Antoine Walker
Steve Francis
Tim Thomas
Kwame Brown
Jermaine O’Neal
Bobby Simmons

You could have ample numbers and long explanations to back these choices up. But I’d rather not because I have Saturday night games to watch. To prove my list is right, just say it aloud. If you’re like me you won’t finish without a little upchuck in the back of your throat.

Yummy.